Disgraced Canadian bishop’s whereabouts again unknown

October 06, 2009

Bishop Raymond Lahey, who has been charged with possession of child pornography, has failed to heed a court order to report to a New Brunswick Trappist abbey. Neither Church officials nor police know where the bishop is.

In addition, the abbot of the Cistercian-Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of Calvary has revealed that the apostolic nunciature arranged for the bishop’s stay at the abbey before his child pornography charges became public. Abbot Bede Stockhill, OCSO, added that he has not been formally informed of the court order and now believes the bishop’s residence at the abbey would not be wise. “Keeping him here as long as it was not publicly known would have been feasible, and I think I was open enough to it in my own mind, but then he phoned to say he wanted to stay where he was-- in Ottawa.”

The Ottawa Citizen reported:

On arrangements made by the Vatican’s office in Ottawa, Lahey first arrived in New Brunswick on Sept. 25. According to Stockhill, the bishop said he needed to get away.

Lahey stayed at the guest house, where the suggested donation is $40 dollars a night, and guests are served and cooked for by privately-hired chefs.

The next day, the head priest at the 100-year-old monastery learned that his latest guest had resigned abruptly from his Nova Scotia diocese.

Stockhill didn’t pry.

Then, last Wednesday night around supper time, the abbot said the ex-bishop stopped him in a hallway at the monastery, saying he had to leave and fly to Ottawa because he had been charged with possession of child pornography.

The abbot says he barely had a reaction to the horrible news.

“I take things as they come,” Stockhill said.

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